Whether you should leave JOB for CAT ?

The answer in the most cases would be you shouldn’t. While in some cases you really should but what to do if you decide to leave the job.

I will try to answer this question in depth.

First of all, in most cases you shouldn’t think of quitting the job.

Here is the reason.

There is a mindset prevalent amongst those who leave the JOB completely is “if they burnt all their boats they would be able to fully focus on CAT and definitely crack it.”
Also they would be able to give more and more time for CAT preparation, they are more likely to get into their desired B-school.

There is inherent flaw in their thinking.

The flaw is Risk Taking (leaving JOB completely) will ensure success in CAT.

But let me tell you, risk taking is good when it’s calculated not when it’s miscalculated and driven by your emotions.

The latter type of risk taking is just plain stupid.

Let me tell you why.

1. Eligibility and admission criteria changes every year, you can predict with no certainty that whether this year same amount of percentile can fetch you the same call or not.

2. There is also problem with (ab)normalization. Nobody is really sure about the process and it can backfire on you for no reason.

3. Your past academic records matter so much if you want to get admission in a good college, it might happen that you might get 99%ile this year but you won’t get call from IIM-A, IIM-B & IIM-K just because your poor performance in SSC or HSC or Graduation.

4. Let’s admit it, there is close to 50% reservation for various categories including OBC, SC, ST, NT, certain reservation for girls and some undisclosed selection criteria which keeps on changing very year, you can’t be sure what is going to happen with you.

5. Every candidate even from different streams is judged equally so there are no different criteria for judging someone from Arts, Commerce, Science, Medical, Engineering background.
Engineer can score more than 80% in graduation, someone from Arts or Medical can’t.

6. There is an economical reason involved here

Applying for different entrance tests, applying to different colleges, traveling for GD/PIs can be very expensive. Plus, when you get admission, you need to deposit certain amount (50k to 2 lacs), so if you don’t want to depend on your parents, it’s a good reason to stay in the job.

7. Your personal interview would be much smoother as you don’t have to endlessly defend why you left the job completely when all others who are also competing with you didn’t and still managed to get the call.

8. When you are just preparing for CAT, you end up solving a lot of section tests, mocks which eventually depletes almost all the material you have plus just because you know you have plenty of time for preparation, your momentum slows down as CAT arrives, you lose interest in solving questions because for the last few months you just did the same thing and now you want a break from this whole thing.

When you should really quit the job and what you should do?

If you read all the reasons above and still feel that it’s OK to quit the job, consider following points

1. If you are slogging your ass for 12 hours in the job every single day and left with no time to prepare.

2. If it’s not possible to study at all while on the job, commute, after you come home because of various problems.

3. If you have only one day off and other days are completely and fully occupied with either work or work & commute

4. If it’s very difficult to get leave easily even for a couple of days or for a week.

5. If your job is draining too much of your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual energy.
a. Colleagues are pain in the ass

b. Boss is overbearing and forces you to wait and overburdens you with work

c. Work is completely and totally different from what you have studied, work is mentally exhausting, boring and doesn’t align with your short and long term goals and with no value addition at workplace.

If you want to learn what you should do , just in case if you decide to quit the job and also want to learn what’s the best way to work around the job you are doing so that you can have plenty of time to prepare for CAT, plus if you want to learn 5 minute straitjacket technique to get sabbatical from your work,

I’ll come to the point directly! I really liked this article of yours and some of the previous ones as well. Right now I’ll give you the feedback for this.

I was seriously considering leaving my job for over a month till last week, when I decided against it. After reading your article I became really confident about my decision of staying on the job and planning my study accordingly.

The way you have pointed out all the factors that we need to consider before making this decision was too good… Please continue the same. There are few improvements I’d like to suggest and will do the same in my next mail.

Comments

Comments

Hi Surkut,
I had a couple of queries regarding my CAT preparations. While one has been almost solved after reading this post of yours for which I am really thankful. My last two attempts of CAT have not been great with percentile hovering in lower 80s and I must admit that I didn’t prepare seriously enough. I have graduated in 2013,and am currently working in Vedanta Resources PLC. I just want to ask you that although I have a good academic record , I do not have enough Co- curriculars to support it on my CV. Is this worrying enough? I am eagerly looking forward to your reply.

It’s not big reason to worry but I think you should try to engage in few other activities which will strengthen your resume, profile. Make sure you get involved in different things of your interest ASAP ( use spare time in these activities when you are not preparing for CAT)

Hi,
I may be am categorized under “Why you should quit”..I have 3+ yrs of experience now.If I quit,as there is some serious time and mental stress issues, how should I justify the reason during the interview?
Thanks in advance..:)